Bigberry Manzanita is a large shrub or a small tree that can grow to 20 feet tall. It is the most common manzanita in the foothills and a major component of the chaparral. A member of the , it is recognized by its red-brown bark, its blue-green, leathery leaves, its hairless stems, and many tiny, urn-shaped flowers that open in midwinter.

Leaves: The leaves are , about 1 to 2 inches long, and 3/4 to 1 1/2 inches wide, with 1/4-inch-long stalks. The top and bottom leaf surfaces are light green with a whitish coating that gives the leaves their blue-green hue. The leaves are held vertically so that the sun does not strike the leaf surfaces directly during the hot part of the day. The new leaves that grow at the ends of branches in the rainy season are light green, setting them apart from the mature . Only the new leaves on a seedling or very young plant have , in contrast with the usually smooth margins of more mature foliage. Buds set in late summer and flower from December through March. Small, urn-shaped flowers hang upside down on sticky in short, dense clusters. The flower is about 3/8 inch long. Its 5 tiny may be white or pinkish. The 5 white are seamlessly and form an upside-down urn, totally enclosing the 10 , one , and a disc.

Manzanitas have nectaries that attract insects, but the primary pollinators (Bumblebees and Carpenter Bees) do not gather the . They gather pollen, instead. To get the pollen, one of these large bees grasps the small flower and hangs upside-down below it. Then, using its wing muscles, it vibrates the flower. Pollen falls from the and is caught on the underside of the bee. When the bee visits another flower, some of the pollen is transferred to its pistil. This process is called sonication or, more commonly, buzz-pollination. Since European honeybees are not capable of sonication, they often chew a small hole in the corolla to extract the nectar, without pollinating the flower. Robbed of its nectar, that flower no longer attracts pollinators and, therefore, does not get pollinated, so it develops no fruit. The fruit looks like a miniature apple, as its common name implies (“manzanita” is Spanish for “little apple”). This large berry, a sticky sphere or oval, is about 1/2 inch in diameter. As it develops, the fruit changes in color from reddish or cream to green, then reddish brown, and finally dark brown. Bigberry Manzanita is very common on chaparral slopes below 4,500 feet in elevation. Its range covers the and and desert mountains of southern California, as well as the , and . Bigberry Manzanita is one of 5 of Arctostaphylos in the San Gabriel Mountains, and the only one that has consistently hairless, white-coated leaves and twigs. San Gabriel Mountains Manzanita (A. glandulosa ssp. glaucomollis) can be found in the foothills above 2,000 feet. It tends to be a smaller shrub, with finely hairy leaves and twigs. Give Bigberry Manzanita ample space; with time, it grows to be a very large shrub. Its blue-green foliage and smooth dark-red bark are exquisitely beautiful. It provides habitat and food to a number of birds, and requires no extra water besides normal rainfall. It should not be pruned severely and can live a long time if it has well-drained soil. It can be propagated from hardwood cuttings in fall.
Full sun.
Only occasional summer water, if any.
Requires well-drained soil.
Because of its early flowers, Bigberry Manzanita is an important nectar source for Anna’s Hummingbirds, which remain in the San Gabriel foothills all winter. The berries are eaten by a number of medium- to large-sized birds, such as California Quail and Mountain Quail, California Thrasher, and Spotted Towhee. This species of Manzanita does not have a and cannot from a root . To recover from fires, it must rely on seeds in the soil. These seeds require charred wood from the fires to . It takes several years for a plant to flower and produce new seeds, so a second fire that comes too soon (before new seeds are available) threatens the survival of this species in the burned areas. Arctostaphylos is derived from the Greek arcto, “bear”, and staphylos, “a bunch of grapes”, and can be translated as “bear berry”; glauca means “gray” or “covered with a whitish material that easily rubs off”.